Leadership In Law Podcast

S02E80 Benefits of In Home Notary Services with Phillip Hogan

• Marilyn Jenkins • Season 2 • Episode 80

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Phillip Hogan's entrepreneurial journey is a captivating story of opportunity recognition and strategic growth. After a chance encounter with a mobile notary service during an out-of-state car purchase, Hogan spotted an unmet need in the market that would transform his life path. Drawing from childhood experiences working in his family's retail business and leveraging his military discipline from four years of Navy service, he built Signing Services of America into a powerhouse with 65,000 CFPB-compliant notaries nationwide.

What makes Hogan's approach unique is his unwavering commitment to understanding clients' needs. Rather than simply connecting notaries with clients, his company provides comprehensive training to ensure every transaction proceeds smoothly. This attention to detail has made Signing Services of America particularly valuable to mass tort law firms and estate planning attorneys who require reliable document execution. As one estate planning attorney confided to Hogan, before partnering with his service, many trustees never completed their notarization requirements, creating expensive legal complications for families after death.

This conversation shows how strong leadership starts with solving real problems. By streamlining document delivery and notarization with trained notaries and responsive service, Hogan built a business that delivers real value. He believes notaries represent the company and clients, highlighting the importance of trust. For law firm owners, this episode shares useful insights on building effective partnerships and improving the client experience through specialized support.

Reach Phillip here:

www.signingservicesofamerica.com

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Leadership in Law podcast with host Marilyn Jenkins. Cut through the noise, get actionable insights and inspiring stories delivered straight to your ears your ultimate podcast for navigating the ever-changing world of law firm ownership. In each episode, we dive deep into the critical topics that matter most to you, from unlocking explosive growth to building a thriving team. We connect you with successful firm leaders and industry experts who share their proven strategies and hard-won wisdom. So, whether you're a seasoned leader or just starting your journey as a law firm owner, the Leadership in Law podcast is here to equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to build a successful and fulfilling legal practice.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to another episode of the Leadership in Law podcast. I'm your host, Marilyn Jenkins. Please join me in welcoming my guest, Philip Hogan, to the show today. Philip is the founder and CEO of Signing Services of America. His nationwide notary signing company manages a database of 65,000 CFPB-compliant notary agents and was recognized as number 30 on Inc's Regional Southeast Fastest Growing Companies list in 2023. After serving four years in the US Navy, Philip earned his master's in social work and founded Housing Matters of New York, providing transitional housing for formerly incarcerated nonviolent offenders. In 2016, he established Signing Services of America, where he's disrupting the industry through creativity, deep client understanding and free weekly notary training. A prostate cancer survivor based in Atlanta, Philip is an avid scuba diver and CrossFit enthusiast who holds master's degrees in both public administration and social work. I'm excited to have you here, Philip, Welcome.

Speaker 3:

Thank you, marilyn, I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, Gosh. Thank you for your service. Let's start with that.

Speaker 3:

You're more than welcome.

Speaker 2:

Tell us a bit about your journey, what you're doing and your leadership aspects of your journey.

Speaker 3:

Sure, well, you know you said a lot about my journey, so the pieces that I really would like to plug in are you know, the role that my parents played in me being a businessman and as a child growing up in Hempstead, long Island, back in the early 60s. My parents were business, they were business persons, and back then children were required to work in the family business and contribute their child free child labor, exactly.

Speaker 2:

Got it Very true.

Speaker 3:

So my cousins and I all had to come into my parents.

Speaker 3:

My family comes out of Harlem, so my cousins and I had to go into our parents' stores and my uncle had a store as well and we just had to work.

Speaker 3:

Whatever was required to be done we did Loading the soda case with sodas, putting together the New York Daily News and the New York Times, you know, cleaning, sweeping the floors, whatever right. And so I just grew up that way, and so it was very natural for me to want to aspire to become a businessman, and because of this foundation that my parents established, not only, you know, actually working the business, but building the business and scaling the business and hiring the employees and working with your managers and working with your staff and working with the customers to make the business and the community that the business in thrive. And so, as you mentioned, in 2000, I started Housing Management New York, which was my first business, a social work enterprise, and it was very successful. And in 2016, I started signing Services of America. But again, I would not have been able to do those two entrepreneurial achievements without the blessings and the infusion of the love and the grit from my parents.

Speaker 2:

That's interesting because that also teaches you management and leadership from a young age. You see what it takes to run a business, and retail is tough. Retail is really tough when you're dealing with a public company. That was an incredible education.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you know, it didn't seem like an education at the time.

Speaker 4:

Well, of course not.

Speaker 2:

Sleep the floors again.

Speaker 3:

Put the papers together. You know what are you talking about, you know. But you know I love my. I mean, we loved our parents, right, and so you know it wasn't, it was a contribution that we willingly gave. And but years later is when I really, after working with the city of New York and going through the military and working with other jobs, I really, you know, realized that. Okay, you know, philip, you were really born not born, but you were raised to be an entrepreneur and let's go ahead and pursue that and I'm happy that I've done that. It's been a very rewarding experience. I mean, I've met people like yourself and thousands of other individuals around the country, particularly in the work that Signing Service America does. That has really helped me to appreciate the blessing that I have been bestowed upon to be a successful entrepreneur in the last 10 years.

Speaker 2:

Right, and a lot of people say that our education system is educating employees, but there's so many of us that feel wait, there's more. I want to be in charge of my own destiny and I love talking to entrepreneurs of what got me started and what their thought process was to get started. So tell us about Signed Service of America. How did you come up with the idea? Where did that come from?

Speaker 3:

Sure. So back in 2014, marilyn, I purchased a car out of state and the closing occurred in my home Instead of me running me running to fly into the state where the car was purchased, and they sent a notary who had the closing documents and we literally closed in my living room and I was astonished and I said, okay, this is interesting, how do you do this? And you know, the notary explained to me all I needed to know and I was interested in starting a business. I didn't want to buy and I was interested in starting a business. I didn't want to buy a business, I wanted to start a business. And I said, okay, I can do this right. And so I, literally the next day, began the process of becoming a commissioned notary in the state of Georgia. And once I got my notary commission, then it was about marketing my services to those that were in need, and at the time there was a tremendous the rates, the interest rates were very low, and so there were many, many different clients seeking the services of a traveling notary to have the documents, the various real estate documents, notarized for the signers that were securing these loans. So, you know, I got good.

Speaker 3:

I really learned the business. I knew nothing about the business, to be honest with you, really, but I had a desire. I really had a desire to learn. I was thirsty for wanting to know how to do this. And when I found out how to do it, I said I've got to become the best that it can be. So I did, and my phone began ringing more and more from repeat business. Then, suddenly, you know, I was working with a couple of people and then I got a phone call from a major title company in Clearwater, florida, that wanted to expand their brand in Georgia and they wanted to partner with me to help them expand their brand. And that was fine, but I needed to have resources to do that, because they were sending a tremendous volume. They had anticipated sending a tremendous volume of work in Georgia. Well, I started a signing service, knew nothing about a signing service.

Speaker 2:

But I said okay, but you can only do so much at a time.

Speaker 3:

Exactly, exactly so. Therefore, I needed to. You know, I needed to have resources, and thus, in 2016, I started Signing Services of America.

Speaker 2:

So instead of cloning yourself, you just brought other people in to help you.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, because it was just no way, it was really no way to to handle all of that work that this particular client had and it would. I would have flopped right. I just you know, and and fortunately I realized that, okay, I assessed the size of their company and we had a decent conversation at the time of what type of work that they would be sending us the volume, the frequencies, the locations, that kind of information and then I said, ok, well, we'll go ahead and get going and then I'll call in the troops. Now, you know, nine years later, I still have the same kind of on-boarding call with clients. I still have the same kind of on-boarding call with clients, and it's a very, very good moment for both the client and my company to get a really good understanding of each other what are our needs, what are our expectations and what are our deliverables. They're comfortable by realizing that, okay, they're working with a partner who understands them and then understands how to deliver the needs that they have through the service that's being provided no-transcript.

Speaker 2:

So then, basically, what you've done is in real estate and legal. You have a database of people all over the US. I'm assuming that can go to someone's home and take care of that legal paperwork and get the signatures as required by law and then return them to the client.

Speaker 3:

Yes, exactly that's the simplicity of the work that we do. The complexity of the work that we do it depends upon, actually, the type of signing. We deal with several different type of mortgage products HELOCs, loan assumptions, loan modifications, refinances, purchases, sales sides and so we have to understand we meaning the internal employees of the company have to understand what are these documents and how to interpret these documents, because our notaries, who we hire, that are in the field, may not be knowledgeable about the contents of that particular document and they're calling our office to seek the support to answering these questions and we don't want to flood our clients with those questions because they're super busy doing other things and they hire us. So we have to do the training, the ongoing training, to make sure that my internal staff are up to speed in regard to who is our client, who is our client representative, what are the products and what do we understand what those products are.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so you take it upon yourself to make sure that your people are trained with whatever your client needs. So we're not going back and forth.

Speaker 3:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

That's fantastic, and it saves time as well and makes it much more efficient.

Speaker 3:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

So how? So? You're very supportive of the legal community, obviously real estate you got that. So explain how you can work with the legal community, how you help the legal community.

Speaker 3:

Sure, we help the legal community because we've worked with mass thought law firms and it's super, super exciting to do that.

Speaker 3:

That was a very interesting project and one that was very rewarding, because the opportunity arose for me to be involved in developing or being part of the development software development team that created the integration between the software that they were using and our software, and so with that, you know, I was part of the blueprint of obviously creating that API.

Speaker 3:

And then, of course, the work that we were doing is to get the settlement agreement documents executed by the recipient of the settlement, and so this particular claims administrator wants to, have wanted to have all of his settlement agreement documents notarized in the presence of a notary, and it was much more efficient to hire us to then go out and send the notary with the settlement agreement documents to the recipient, opposed to giving the recipient the settlement agreement documents and then having them go to have those documents signed by a notary. Sometimes that doesn't work as efficiently and timely as everyone needed, and so that, yeah, so really timeliness. You know what I mean, because when you're dealing with these class actions, these mass tort law settlements, it's this massive and time is of essence and it's been a lot of time put into it. So we really need to make sure that you know the funds are received and dispersed and all those things. So having the settlement agreement was the critical component to having funds dispersed in a timely manner okay, fantastic.

Speaker 2:

And so do you send like are these documents fedex? To the particular notary, and then they take them out to the receiver of the settlement.

Speaker 3:

Good question. And no, we don't FedEx our documents. What we do is, once they're giving to us, they are uploaded into a secure portal and then it's the responsibility of the agent to access that portal with their login information, download the documents, print, go to the signing and then, depending upon the request of the client, we'll determine if they're to be scanned back to the client or FedExed back to the client.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so using your portal, you're getting that continuity of evidence. So, the chain of evidence. That's not what I'm trying to think of, but yes, you're controlling where it goes and who's handling it, how long it's out before it's signed and sent back.

Speaker 3:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Very interesting and mass torts is the main thing of what you've done and I'm sure there's a lot of other case instances that attorneys need notaries.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and so one branch of the legal community is mass taught law. The other branch is estate planning. And so here is a really fascinating piece, because, you know, I was on this podcast show with a attorney who is promoting, you know, estate planning and, as a result, there were a couple of members of his audience that heard the show, was fascinated and then reached out, and what we provided to them is, when the estate planning documents are ready the POAs, the wills, the trust and the other additional documents are ready they wanted the notary to go to the home of the trustees and get the document signed. So the process again is the same, which is that we get the docs, we get the scheduling information, we schedule and sign a notary and then the notary goes. What's different is just that we now need to make sure that the notary and my staff are at least aware as the contents of these documents to understand what needs to be done. If there's any questions, then we can answer those questions.

Speaker 3:

And then, with this particular client, with these two clients, they wanted the trustees to keep the documents. They don't want to get them back. And I found out a very interesting thing, which was that one of the gentlemen from the estate planning firm said, philip, we really appreciate your business, your service, because I was giving these documents to the trustees expecting for them to get them notarized and they never did. And the worst thing that would happen is that he said, unfortunately the trustee would pass without these documents being executed and witnessed by a notary. And he said he created a whole lot of additional legal procedures, that he had to go to court and he had to really justify legally all of what was supposed to happen. But because the trustees didn't get the document signed, it didn't happen. So now that we are on board, now things are done in a timely, accurate manner and he's so much relieved because now he says, I can sleep at night.

Speaker 2:

Well, and it also saves the family a lot more money of not having to go through prolete and all that kind of stuff. That's very interesting. So this is fascinating, that this is, and so you've got a database of 65,000 people that are qualified to help with this across the US. That's great. Let's talk a little bit about how you grew. Grew okay. You saw, you saw a need. You started and it was you and then you scaled in georgia. How did and what issues did you bump into? Scaling, say, nation?

Speaker 3:

one. You know, scaling is a challenge and and that it it it encompasses a number of things in terms of clients right. First we had to scale with clients right. So then you have to really understand. You know, back then, in earlier days, we did some marketing, but more so, you know, people were calling us and I had to learn, when we got a phone call from a potential new client, what are the questions that I need to ask, what's the scenario that I'd like to create? What's the environment that I wanted to have this new client come into, to welcome them and realize that they don't need to search any further. So that was really through trial and error and fortunately I learned fast from some of the mistakes that I made. So each time a new client called I was able to.

Speaker 3:

I had refined the onboarding process to the point where it's now. It's aning process, to the point where it's now it's an official component to the collaboration and it's essential, right. And one of these, one of the essential things in the onboarding of the club of the collaboration is this doing follow-up calls once you come on board. Okay, we don't just, you know, okay, push you off and say, okay, you're on board and forget about you know we reach out, I reach out, conduct weekly calls, just make sure, are things being done to your expectations? Is anything else they would like to do? Whatever, whatever, whatever. That way the client feels is, though, okay, well, we're not a forgotten person. So that's one thing, this.

Speaker 3:

The second thing is just making the announcements to notaries, and there's various boards and ways of marketing to the notaries that we've reached out to, and we've used those boards to reach out to them, inviting them to come in board and sign up with us.

Speaker 3:

And now, when you sign up with us, guess what?

Speaker 3:

We want to hire you. And then, when we hire you, we're going through a very formal onboarding process before we hire you, to make sure that you are comfortable working for us and we're comfortable, you and you and representing us, because one of the things I explained to our notaries in Maryland is that not only you representing yourself, you're representing my company, you're representing the person that hired us, and it may be a person that hired that company. So you have to understand that we are a team here, and if you're willing to buy into the team concept, we'll be successful. And then the training you mentioned in the intro is that we provide training to our notaries and we're really excited about that because it's given them opportunity to interface with me in a live Zoom call with real world training, information that's relevant to the work that they do, by the people that do the work, and it has been really, really profound in building the strength and the support between the internal office and staff within the company and the notary signing community.

Speaker 2:

It sounds like you've certainly built a really good bridge there and a good team up with signs. I agree with the communication. I think a lot of service providers can hide and not communicate enough and people feel like they're not seen and that's the quickest way to lose a client. So, communication I think is extremely important and it sounds like you've done a great job. What do you do when you're looking at evaluation? And so you said you want to make sure that there's somebody you want to work with and that you want to represent your company.

Speaker 2:

How do you evaluate?

Speaker 3:

Sure, it's a great question.

Speaker 3:

Thank you for the compliment. I really appreciate it. And so one of the things that we look for is that you know, because I was a notary in the field, I understand what the process consists of, right, and not only do I understand, I understood, but I was very successful right. So that validates, you know, my skills, that I was using to do the work that I did. If I, if I weren't being rehired, then okay, there's no validation to say, okay, well, listen, phillip, you know you're still a scrub, you know, so to speak, you know what I mean. And so I tell the staff I said listen, let's use my experience as working in the field as to what we want to have our notaries do right. And so there's different segments throughout the signing process that the notary needs to do. It's a very formal process, and so when we do our vetting calls or our onboarding calls, we are asking the notaries very specific questions in that segment of the conversation and, depending upon the answers, we'll determine if we want to move forward or not. Sometimes notaries have not answered correctly and so we say, listen, this is not the deal for you, you know, we'll keep you on the list and we'll call you back Sometimes. So we said listen, this is not the deal for you, you know, we'll keep you. We'll keep you on the list and we'll call you back Sometimes.

Speaker 3:

We have said, well, the notice have revealed that I'm really new at this and I'll have much experience. You know, would you mentor me? And you know, I respect that. I respect someone who's willing to say I really I don't know, but I want to learn Right and and I give you a shot and these people are going to do some phenomenal work for us and they've got, they've built a very successful career. So it really starts with. You know, this is the very it, marilyn, in this business, in the business that I, that I'm in and the people that we work with, the number one value that is very active here is trust.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 3:

And you know, and I help my notice, I help notice, understand that, listen, man, you have to understand that my clients are trusting me to to hire someone that will represent you sorry that would represent them well and I and I I value that trust and if it's broken, then it can sometimes can not be repaired, and if it's broken then it sometimes cannot be repaired. So I take it very seriously and I help my staff understand that the notaries are representing us, as I mentioned to you earlier, and then they're representing our clients and so you know and I tell the notaries understand, listen, if something goes wrong, the client's going to come back and say well, phillip, ssa, you hired the notary, we trusted you to hire the notary, so you know what you got to deal with the decisions that you made, right, yeah, okay.

Speaker 2:

I agree, massive trust. Well, this is excellent If any of our listeners wanted to reach out to you for your services? How would they connect with you and learn more about you?

Speaker 3:

Marilyn, thank you for that question. They connect with you and learn more about you. Marilyn, thank you for that question, and I would love to speak to anyone who would like to learn more about us or possibly consider a collaboration opportunity. They just simply need to go to our website, which is wwwsigningservicesofamericacom. Wwwsigningservicesofamericacom, and there in the bottom of the website is a consultation form. You'll fill it out. That comes to me, I'll give you a call and we will discuss your purpose for reaching out to us and hopefully we can start a collaborative. Hopefully we'll be able to help you.

Speaker 2:

That's fantastic. This has been really interesting. I hadn't heard of this type of service. It seems incredibly valuable. Thank you so much for being here and chatting with us today.

Speaker 3:

Marilyn, thank you for having me.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Speaker 4:

Thanks for joining me today for this episode. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, you can connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take the next step with a digital strategist to help you grow your law firm, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to lawmarketingzonecom to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, thanks for listening to Leadership in Law podcast and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Leadership in Law podcast. Remember you're not alone on this journey. There's a whole community of law firm owners out there facing similar challenges and striving for the same success. Head over to our website at lawmarketingzonecom. From there, connect with other listeners, access valuable resources and stay up to date on the latest episodes. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Until next time, keep leading with vision and keep growing your firm.

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Marilyn Jenkins

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